Swedish steel manufacturer SSAB has announced that its summer maintenance outages this year will be extended from the normal duration of approximately two to four weeks up to around nine weeks, primarily within the production of slabs. Under normal circumstances, SSAB implements maintenance outages at its Swedish plants during the holiday period, when maintenance work and inspection of the plants are carried out.
SSAB's decision to extend the normal maintenance outages this year is based on the assessment SSAB has made concerning market developments. Its capacity utilization and thereby production remain at very low levels.
The extended summer maintenance outage will reduce SSAB's costs since larger-scale maintenance work can be carried out during daytime and the need for summer replacement staff will be significantly reduced this year.
SSAB has 9,200 employees in over 45 countries and production plants in Sweden and the United States.